Menstrual blood

[MotherEarthisaTerf]

Sorry if this is a repeat thread but I had a quick look first.

It's the first time anyone's done an assessment of period products absorbency using blood and not just saline. Doctors have been using fuck all data to assess whether a woman has a "heavy flow" up until now.

https://srh.bmj.com/content/early/2023/07/03/bmjsrh-2023-201895

"Understanding the capacity of different products could help doctors to estimate whether a person is in need of further tests or treatments, as excessive menstrual bleeding could put them at risk of anaemia, or be suggestive of other underlying medical problems.“I might ask a patient, ‘what’s your period like?’ and she might say, ‘well, I soak a pad about every two hours’ – but I don’t necessarily have the time to ask what brand it is or if it’s super maxi,”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/aug/08/menstrual-discs-may-be-better-for-heavy-periods-than-pads-or-tampons-study

(Apologies for the term menstruators in that article )

FFFS

an extra F for good reason. This has never been looked at before?

FFFFFFFS

Really interesting, thanks. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the testing up until now has been so crap - my year 7s could have told you that's not "a fair test". Also - what's a menstrual disc? Looks like a frisbee! Apparently they hold the most but I can only imagine potential disaster on attempting to empty as it flies across the bathroom.....

When I first started using a cup it had a measure on it so out of idle curiosity I kept a mental note of what I bled through the day. Cannot remember the numbers now. Then googled average flow so I had something to compare it to. No problems just curious. Turns out if any woman every bled as much as I did it was an A and E job and not normal. Which it definitely wasn’t, wasn’t even the heaviest my period ever was. So I’ve known for a long time men sit in board rooms “knowing “ things about periods based on what a Victorian dr managed to infer from a hypothetical conversation with the scullery maid. Ok I don’t know that bit but I know they haven’t asked a 100 woman to accurately record their blood loss over a year.

Yes to @Doormatnomore!

I only got taken seriously when I told the doctor ‘The average is 45ml or 60ml, right? [Dr nodded] I lost about five times that, 300ml. Why and what can I do about it’?

I strongly recommend all women use menstrual cups so they can have an evidence based idea of what is normal and what is not.

Doctors, specifically GPs, do not have the time or inclination to do full investigations and they frequently don’t have the critical thinking skills to even realize that they may be necessary.

Wow. Is anyone surprised that this is the first study?
I used to have to take a day off work each month because I couldn't leave the school library at lunchtime, and I couldn't go 50 mins without changing my max tampon and pad. I had to fight with my GP to be taken seriously. "You don't look anaemic". I was.
That was 20 years ago!

I used to use a cup and I told the (male) GP exactly how much blood I was getting on my period. He laughed and told me that wasn't possible.

Patronising prick.

Most GPs haven't the faintest idea about women's health imo.

Haven't got time to ask the size of pad? Haven't got literally ten seconds?

Realise this isn't the point of the article, but fucking hell.

300ml in total? Ha! Amateur! I lost that in a single day. Agree with everyone trying menstrual cups, it's an eye opener!

3 months post-hysterectomy, no longer anaemic and very much loving life.

(Seriously though if men had periods they would be the most researched thing ever and they'd be bragging about their pad count down the pub)

I think most women with heavy periods would typically say the size of pad/tampon or cup that they use when speaking to their GP, rather than just say "I soak a pad every hour". Women will tend to keep using higher absorbencies until it becomes obvious that even the highest absorbency with doubling up doesn't stop you needing to change it all every hour. That's when they might consider going to the GP!

As an aside, a whole article about menstruation and research into it without using the words woman/women is astonishing. I find the use of the word "menstruator" to be deeply unpleasant, it's dehumanising and weird.

My goodness @Nevermay - this is what you choose to comment on? This is a chat topic, not a symposium.

Never surprised but always disappointed when yet again women are massively affected by research leaving them out.

I never know what to say when I'm asked if my periods are heavy. I don't have anything to compare mine too.

I think they are moderate. On the heaviest day, I'll maybe need to change every 3-4 hours. But is that just because I'm using a good brand and its actually heavy?

And we need two health secretaries. One male and one female. And male and female execs in each hospital because no man should be deciding how pregnant women are treated and how they give birth or how period issues should be handled.

Dear God.

Talking of language - menstruators.

🙄I'm a wimpond ffs 😉

I'm struggling to see what's babyish about the words "a fair test"?

I agree that cups are useful. I also agree that the "volume of heavy period" is woefully underestimating how bad it can get. 80 ml in a whole period is heavy? Righty ho.

This doesn't surprise me at all, I remember watching something with Dr Robert Winston( really like him) years ago, were he referred to how much a woman will lose during her period and said it was an egg cup amount. I Sat there and thought What the fuck?!? where hell did he get that info.

What is your problem? These children will lose marks in their GCSEs if they are talking like that, that is primary language, low primary language, and a grade dropper if used at secondary school

I didn’t expect this thread to be so funny. Thanks for the laugh with my coffee.

Do you mean the words 'a fair test'?

@DraggedKickingandScreaminginto40s I remember being taught that you lose an egg cup amount of blood, but my secondary school biology teacher adding that you also lose a lot of other fluid so that it looks like more. At the time I thought she was trying to reassure us that we wouldn't all bleed out - but maybe she was just using her personal experience to let us know that the fact in the text book was incorrect!

My students don't do their GCSEs in year 7.

40 years ago I remember being told authoritatively in medical school that the blood loss in a normal period was less than 80ml. "It's more than that!" the women in the group chorused. The lecturer went on to tell us that some women exaggerated, possibly because their (hysterical) mothers had taught them to make a huge song and dance about normal periods.

And we took that institutional gaslighting out into our professional lives, along with requiring proof of iron deficiency before some gynaecologists would treat a referral of a woman for heavy periods seriously.